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Collect payables

Learn how to collect an incoming invoice to start the payable flow.

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Overview

There are several ways to collect payables into Monite:

  • Create a payable via API by providing the amount, currency, and other details.
  • Upload an invoice in PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TIFF formats via API.
  • Send an invoice in PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TIFF formats by email to the entity's mailbox.

When a payable is created from a PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TIFF file, Monite's OCR service automatically extracts the invoice information from the file and a new payable is created with the extracted data fields accordingly. The file property of the payable contains the file metadata and the link to access the original source file.

📘

OCR considerations

  • The OCR process is asynchronous and might require several minutes to produce the result.
  • The maximum image file size is 10 MB.
  • The maximum email size is 25 MB (including all attachments).
  • Multipage PDF and TIFF files can have up to 10 pages.

Monite's OCR service is not executed if the format of the uploaded document is not supported or the number of pages exceeds 10. Therefore, no invoice information is stored. In this case, only the information about the file is stored.

Create a payable from data

If you already have the invoice data (amount in minor units, currency, vendor information, and other details) stored somewhere as individual attributes, you can create a payable with these attributes by calling POST /payables/upload_with_data.

You can provide the base64-encoded contents of the original invoice file in the field base64_encoded_file:

curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/payables/upload_with_data' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
     -d '{
       "currency": "EUR",
       "amount": 11900,
       "description": "Restock office supplies",
       "due_date": "2022-07-15",
       "payment_terms": {
         "name": "2/10, 1/20, net 30",
         "term_1": {
           "number_of_days": 10,
           "discount": 2
         },
         "term_2": {
           "number_of_days": 20,
           "discount": 1
         },
         "term_final": {
           "number_of_days": 30
         }
       },
       "suggested_payment_term": {
         "date": "2022-08-04",
         "discount": 10000
       },
       "issued_at": "2022-06-15",
       "counterpart_id": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
       "counterpart_bank_id": "DEUTDE2HXXX",
       "counterpart_account_id": "123456789012",
       "counterpart_name": "Acme Inc.",
       "counterpart_address": {
         "country": "DE",
         "city": "Berlin",
         "postal_code": "10115",
         "state": "BE",
         "line1": "Flughafenstrasse 52",
         "line2": "Floor 2"
       },
       "base64_encoded_file": "... Base64-encoded contents of the invoice file ...",
       "tag_ids": [],
       "document_id": "DE2287",
       "subtotal": 1250,
       "tax": 1900,
       "sender": "[email protected]",
       "file_name": "invoice.pdf",
       "line_items": [
         {
           "name": "New item",
           "description": "Nice new product",
           "quantity": 1.22,
           "price": 1200,
           "vat": 1250,
           "subtotal": 1067
         }
       ]
     }'

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Notes

  • The file_name field is optional. If omitted, it defaults to "default_file_name".
  • If the settings are configured to automatically set suggested_payment_term, this object can be omitted from the request body.

The successful response returns the id assigned to this payable, along with the information passed in the request. You can use this id in other API calls to update the data of this payable or trigger status transitions:

{
  "partner_metadata": {},
  "id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
  "entity_id": "en-your0000-enti-ty00-1D3799b65bcf",
  "status": "new",
  "source_of_payable_data": "user_specified",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "amount": 11900,
  "description": "Restock office supplies",
  "due_date": "2022-07-15",
  "payment_terms": {
    "name": "2/10, 1/20, net 30",
    "term_1": {
      "number_of_days": 10,
      "discount": 2
    },
    "term_2": {
      "number_of_days": 20,
      "discount": 1
    },
    "term_final": {
      "number_of_days": 30
    }
  },      
  "suggested_payment_term": {
    "date": "2022-08-04",
    "discount": 10000
  },
  "issued_at": "2022-06-15",
  "counterpart_bank_id": null,
  "counterpart_id": "8737964a-5246-47f4-8243-8728a2be1e75",
  "counterpart_account_id": null,
  "counterpart_name": "Acme Inc.",
  "counterpart_address": {
    "country": "DE",
    "city": "Berlin",
    "postal_code": "10115",
    "state": "BE",
    "line1": "Flughafenstrasse 52",
    "line2": "Floor 2"
  },
  "payable_origin": "upload",
  "was_created_by_user_id": "e4e422fc-6956-4fdd-b091-920329f8b92e",
  "was_created_by_external_user_name": null,
  "was_created_by_external_user_id": null,
  "currency_exchange": {
    "default_currency_code": "EUR",
    "rate": 10.0,
    "total": 0
  },
  "file": {
    "id": "2d14935e-505b-4863-a082-b6a340acabbc",
    "created_at": "2022-04-05T06:31:31.431Z",
    "file_type": "payables",
    "name": "file name",
    "region": "eu-central-1",
    "md5": "623470039566983ed5e5945f769ea873",
    "mimetype": "application/pdf",
    "url": "https://monite-file-saver-payables-eu-central-1-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/2d14935e.../669bab57c57f.pdf",
    "size": 49463,
    "previews": [],
    "pages": [],
  },
  "tags": [],
  "created_at": "2022-06-17T06:31:31.431Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-06-17T06:31:31.431Z",
  "other_extracted_data": null,
  "line_items": [
    {
      "label": {
        "text": "total",
        "confidence": 99.799
      },
      "value": {
        "text": "€1,125.00",
        "confidence": 96.238,
        "processed_text": 1125
      }
    }
  ],
  "applied_policy": null,
  "document_id": "DE2287",
  "subtotal": 1250,
  "tax": 1900,
  "sender": "[email protected]"
 }'
}
Automatic calculation of due date

Automatic calculation of due date

If the due_date is not provided, it is automatically calculated based on the issued_at plus the number of days defined by payment_terms.term_final.number_of_days.

For example, if issued_at equals to 2022-06-15 and payment_terms.term_final.number_of_days equals to 10, the due_date will be automatically set to 2022-06-25.

Suggested payment date

Suggested payment date

Once the payable is created, Monite automatically fills the payable's field suggested_payment_term with a suggestion for the payment date and corresponding discount, if available, based on its payment terms (represented by the field payment_terms).

It is possible to choose the payment term (term_1, term_2, or term_final) to be suggested as default by setting the field payment_priority in the entity's settings to one of these values:

  • working_capital: Selects the term with the latest possible payment target.

  • bottom_line: Selects the term with the highest discount.

  • balanced: Selects the intermediate term, that is, a balance between duration and drawn discount.

The suggested_payment_term will be calculated based on the field issued_at added by the term_X.number_of_days. Note that this suggestion does not affect the invoice's due date, which remains the same.

Change the payment priority

To update the payment_priority of in the entity's settings, call PATCH /entities/{entity_id}/settings, passing the new payment_priority in the body:

curl -X PATCH 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/entities/{entity_id}/settings' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_PARTNER_TOKEN' \
     -d '{
       "payment_priority": "working_capital"
     }'

Upload files via API

You can upload invoices in the PDF, PNG, or JPG format to Monite by calling POST /payables/upload_from_file. The maximum file size is 10 MB:

curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/payables/upload_from_file' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
     -H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \
     -F '[email protected];type=application/pdf'

In return, you receive back the 201 Created response with id and other parameters:

{
  "partner_metadata": {},
  "id": "61257ac9-ef71-4977-9e40-c9e027c7d539",
  "entity_id": "9d2b4c8f-2087-4738-ba91-7359683c49a4",
  "marked_as_paid_with_comment": null,
  "marked_as_paid_by_entity_user_id": null,
  "status": "draft",
  "source_of_payable_data": "ocr",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "amount": null,
  "description": null,
  "due_date": null,
  "payment_terms": null,
  "suggested_payment_term": null,
  "issued_at": null,
  "counterpart_bank_id": null,
  "counterpart_id": null,
  "counterpart_account_id": null,
  "counterpart_name": null,
  "counterpart_tax_id": null,
  "counterpart_address": null,
  "payable_origin": "upload",
  "was_created_by_user_id": null,
  "was_created_by_external_user_name": null,
  "was_created_by_external_user_id": null,
  "currency_exchange": null,
  "file": {
    "id": "eac016c4-e06e-4cea-8ebf-3ec72dc8b49d",
    "created_at": "2023-03-20T18:24:24.808836+00:00",
    "file_type": "payables",
    "name": "8d545f97-bcb3-4dfc-8ccf-1aa62d887781",
    "region": "eu-central-1",
    "md5": "89746feb534f35364e6760e2d834fe19",
    "mimetype": "application/pdf",
    "url": "https://monite-file-saver-payables-eu-central-1-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/2d14935e.../669bab57c57f.pdf",
    "size": 18095,
    "previews": [],
    "pages": []
  },
  "tags": null,
  "created_at": "2023-03-22T08:09:06.650657+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2023-03-22T08:09:06.650669+00:00",
  "other_extracted_data": null,
  "applied_policy": null,
  "document_id": null,
  "subtotal": null,
  "tax": null,
  "sender": null,
  "line_items": [],
  "ocr_request_id": "d31562e6-8e7d-4dbd-ba53-a8a62b6c2a62"
}

You will also receive a webhook indicating that this payable resource has been created:

{
  "object_id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
  "entity_id": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
  "object_type": "payable",
  "action": "payable.created_from_file_upload",
  "name": "Action has been performed on the invoice: created_from_file_upload."
}

Note that at this stage the payable resource is incomplete and waiting for the results of the OCR service, which automatically scans the details from the uploaded invoice and maps the information from the invoice to the corresponding data field in the system.

When the OCR scanning is finished (this might take up to 5-7 minutes), you will receive the payable.ocr_finished webhook event:

{
  "object_id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
  "entity_id": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
  "object_type": "payable",
  "action": "payable.ocr_finished",
  "name": "Action has been performed on the invoice: ocr_finished."
}

Now, you can call GET /payables/:id to retrieve the results of the OCR scanning:

{
  "partner_metadata": {},
  "id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
  "entity_id": "en-your0000-enti-ty00-1D3799b65bcf",
  "status": "new",
  "source_of_payable_data": "ocr",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "amount": 11900,
  "description": "",
  "due_date": "2022-06-30",
  "payment_terms": {
    "name": "payment_term",
    "description": "My payment terms",
    "term_final": {
      "number_of_days": 10000
    },
    "term_1": {
      "number_of_days": 10000,
      "discount": 10000
    },
    "term_2": {
      "number_of_days": 10000,
      "discount": 10000
    }
  },
  "suggested_payment_term": {
    "date": "2022-08-04",
    "discount": 10000
  },
  "issued_at": "2022-06-15",
  "counterpart_bank_id": "DEUTDE2HXXX",
  "counterpart_id": "8737964a-5246-47f4-8243-8728a2be1e75",
  "counterpart_account_id": "123456789012",
  "counterpart_name": "Acme Inc.",
  "counterpart_address": {
    "country": "DE",
    "city": "Berlin",
    "postal_code": "10115",
    "state": "BE",
    "line1": "Flughafenstrasse 52",
    "line2": "Floor 2"
  },
  "payable_origin": "upload",
  "was_created_by_user_id": "e4e422fc-6956-4fdd-b091-920329f8b92e",
  "was_created_by_external_user_name": null,
  "was_created_by_external_user_id": null,
  "currency_exchange": null,
  "file": {
    "id": "2d14935e-505b-4863-a082-b6a340acabbc",
    "created_at": "2022-04-05T06:31:31.431Z",
    "file_type": "payables",
    "name": "invoice-example.pdf",
    "region": "eu-central-1",
    "md5": "623470039566983ed5e5945f769ea873",
    "mimetype": "application/pdf",
    "url": "https://monite-file-saver-payables-eu-central-1-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/2d14935e.../669bab57c57f.pdf",
    "size": 49463,
    "previews": [],
    "pages": [
      {
        "id": "ad712600-bab8-4e0d-9da7-5d561484f1b1",
        "mimetype": "image/png",
        "size": 219712,
        "number": 0,
        "url": "https://monite-payables.com/1a95c387.../ac02c56d2a3d.png"
      }
    ]
  },
  "tags": [],
  "created_at": "2022-04-05T06:31:31.431Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-04-05T06:31:31.431Z",
  "other_extracted_data": {
    "summary": [ ... ],
    "line_items": [ ... ]
  },
  "applied_policy": null,
  "document_id": "DE2287",
  "subtotal": 1250,
  "tax": 1900,
  "sender": "[email protected]"
}

The other_extracted_data field in the response contains individual text labels and values extracted by OCR, along with the confidence scores (estimated accuracy of character recognition).

You can use this data to review and double-check the recognized text, but please keep in mind that the structure of this object can change or even be null depending on the OCR results and various types of invoices:

{
   "other_extracted_data":{
      "document_data":{
         "counterpart_account_id":"123456789012",
         "total":11900,
         "counterpart_name":"Acme Inc.",
         "counterpart_address":{
            "country":"DE",
            "city":"Berlin",
            "postal_code":"10115",
            "state":"BE",
            "line1":"Flughafenstrasse 52",
            "line2":"Floor 2"
         },
         "currency":"EUR",
         "document_id":"DE2287",
         "payment_terms":null,
         "tax_payer_id":"IT03773330425",
         "document_issued_at_date":"2022-10-31",
         "document_due_date":"2023-10-31"
      }
   }
}

Send payables by email

Each entity has a dedicated mailbox in Monite to which the payables can be sent. The entity or entity user can send invoices as attachments in PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TIFF format to this mailbox (the maximum file size is 10 MB).

The Monite OCR service scans the information inside each email's attachments. Then, Monite automatically creates a draft payable invoice for each occurrence found. The email of the sender of these files is saved in the field sender of the invoice.

To find the mailbox assigned to a specific entity, call GET /v1/mailboxes:

curl -X GET 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/mailboxes' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_PARTNER_TOKEN'

The successful response contains information about the mailbox:

[
  {
    "id": "e8c884f8-bed3-4d92-afc9-3538c5079014",
    "entity_id": "68fdd6b5-b60c-4f4d-8642-1cd7f2fa31e8",
    "status": "active",
    "related_object_type": "payable",
    "mailbox_name": "1102737648192968373_payables",
    "mailbox_full_address": "[email protected]",
    "belongs_to_mailbox_domain_id": null
  }
]

📘

By default, the automatically created mailboxes belong to the Monite domain (the web address that comes after @ in an email address), but the partners can set up their own email domain for better convenience.

View all payables

List all payables

It is possible to view all the payables in the Monite space. To allow the right level of access to the authorized users, Monite allows certain entity users to view them but not change uploads.

To view all payables, call GET /payables:

curl -X GET 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/payables?order=asc&limit=100' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'

📘

Refer to GET /payables endpoint reference to check all available query parameters for filtering and paginating the results.

The successful response returns a paged series of all payables that the entity has access to. For example: 

{
  "data": [
    {
      "partner_metadata": {},
      "id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
      "entity_id": "b0ff50d0-cdea-42fd-9461-1b3799b65bcf",
      "marked_as_paid_with_comment": null,
      "marked_as_paid_by_entity_user_id": null,
      "status": "new",
      "source_of_payable_data": "ocr",
      "currency": "EUR",
      "amount": 11900,
      "description": null,
      "due_date": "2022-06-30",
      ...,
    }
  ],
  "prev_pagination_token": null,
  "next_pagination_token": "bGltaXQ9MiZmaXJzdF9vaWQ9MSZuZXh0X3Rva2VuPTQ="
}

The prev_pagination_token and next_pagination_token fields are pagination tokens. You can sort and filter the results by the amount, status, and other fields. For the full list of available sort and filter parameters, see the GET /payables endpoint.

Some examples:

  • GET /payables?counterpart_name=Acme%20Inc. - get all payables issued to Acme Inc.
  • GET /payables?amount__gte=15000 - get all payables where the total amount is 150$ or more.
  • GET /payables?status__in=draft&status__in=new - get all draft and new payables.
  • GET /payables?created_at__gte=2022-01-01T00%3A00%3A00 - get all payables created on or after January 1, 2022.
Retrieve a payable

Retrieve a payable

Once a payable is uploaded, the entity and entity users can review the information extracted from the payable by the OCR system.

To retrieve a payable, call GET /payables/{payable_id}:

curl -X GET 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/payables/{payable_id}' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'

The successful response contains the payable attributes:

{
  "partner_metadata": {},
  "id": "aa314fdd-a763-4920-a8c8-6285fc1745c0",
  "entity_id": "b0ff50d0-cdea-42fd-9461-1b3799b65bcf",
  "marked_as_paid_with_comment": null,
  "marked_as_paid_by_entity_user_id": null,
  "status": "new",
  "source_of_payable_data": "ocr",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "amount": 11900,
  "description": null,
  "due_date": "2022-06-30",
  "payment_terms": {
    "name": "payment_term",
    "description": "My payment terms",
    "term_final": {
      "number_of_days": 10000
    },
    "term_1": {
      "number_of_days": 10000,
      "discount": 10000
    },
    "term_2": {
      "number_of_days": 10000,
      "discount": 10000
    }
  },
  "suggested_payment_term": {
    "date": "2022-08-04",
    "discount": 10000
  },
  "issued_at": "2022-06-15",
  "counterpart_bank_id": "DEUTDE2HXXX",
  "counterpart_id": "8737964a-5246-47f4-8243-8728a2be1e75",
  "counterpart_account_id": "123456789012",
  "counterpart_name": "Acme Inc.",
  "counterpart_address": {
    "country": "DE",
    "city": "Berlin",
    "postal_code": "10115",
    "state": "BE",
    "line1": "Flughafenstrasse 52",
    "line2": "Floor 2"
  },
  "payable_origin": "upload",
  "was_created_by_user_id": "e4e422fc-6956-4fdd-b091-920329f8b92e",
  "was_created_by_external_user_name": null,
  "was_created_by_external_user_id": null,
  "currency_exchange": {
    "default_currency_code": "EUR",
    "rate": 10.0,
    "total": 0
  },
  "file": {
    "id": "2d14935e-505b-4863-a082-b6a340acabbc",
    "created_at": "2021-11-25T05:10:35.211432+00:00",
    "file_type": "payables",
    "name": "file name",
    "region": "eu-central-1",
    "md5": "623470039566983ed5e5945f769ea873",
    "mimetype": "image/png",
    "url": "https://monite-payables.com/2d14935e.../669bab57c57f.png",
    "size": 49463,
    "previews": [],
    "pages": []
  },
  "tags": [
    {
      "name": "Marketing",
      "id": "ea837e28-509b-4b6a-a600-d54b6aa0b1f5",
      "created_at": "2022-09-07T16:35:18.484507+00:00",
      "updated_at": "2022-09-07T16:35:18.484507+00:00",
      "created_by_entity_user_id": "ea837e28-509b-4b6a-a600-d54b6aa0b1f5"
    }
  ],
  "created_at": "2021-11-25T05:10:35.211432+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2021-11-25T05:10:35.211447+00:00",
  "other_extracted_data": { ... },
  "applied_policy": "Travel expense approval",
  "document_id": "DE2287",
  "subtotal": 100000,
  "tax": 1900,
  "sender": "[email protected]"
 }
Update a payable

Update a payable

Payables in the draft and new statuses can be updated, for example, to provide additional details or fix the information extracted by OCR. To update a payable, call PATCH /payables/{payable_id} with the request body containing the new field values. For example, to update the amount and due_date:

curl -X PATCH 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/payables/{payable_id}' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-03-14' \
     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d '{
       "amount": 19000,
       "due_date": "2023-07-12"
     }'

Updated about 18 hours ago